


guaranteed

by gracieli



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Henrietta "Hen" Wilson, Sick Evan "Buck" Buckley, Vomiting, post season 1/pre season 2, sick!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:01:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25419634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracieli/pseuds/gracieli
Summary: When Buck doesn't show up to his shift, Bobby sends Hen over to check in on him.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Henrietta "Hen" Wilson
Comments: 19
Kudos: 240





	guaranteed

**Author's Note:**

> set post season 1 / pre season 2

Hen is dead tired. She came off a 24 hour shift _just_ in time to get a few hours of sleep before she had to wake Denny up and get him ready for school. While she cherished these moments with her son, she was absolutely ready to collapse by the time she got back to her house. She was about to head towards her bedroom before her phone rang from her pocket. She pulled out her phone and glanced at it for a moment to see that Bobby was calling.

“Hey Hen, sorry to bother you on your day off. Is now a good time?”

She lets her bag fall off of her shoulder before settling into the couch. “Yeah, I just got back from dropping Denny off at school. Everything ok?”

There’s a pause before Bobby responds, “We’re not sure. Buck was supposed to come in an hour ago but none of us have been able to get in touch with him.”

There is another moment of hesitation before he asks, “Is there any way you could swing by his place to make sure he’s ok? He probably just slept in or something but…”

He trails off and Hen fills in the blanks. Ever since he was fired and then allowed back on the team, Buck has worked hard to cement his place with the 118. While a year ago it wouldn’t have been a huge cause for concern if he had been late to a shift, this was a red flag nowadays.

Even though Hen and the rest of the team know that Bobby cares for them, it’s different with Buck. While Bobby would probably never admit it, pretty much everyone is aware of the gaps they fill in one another’s lives. But despite everyone else being in on it, Hen can tell that Buck is nearly oblivious to Bobby’s love for him. For all that Buck acts cocky, Hen sees how insecure he is, how he can be cautious around Bobby at times, almost as if he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Which goes back to his absence being a red flag. Buck would never offer up an opportunity for the other shoe to drop if he could help it.

She’s eager to relieve Bobby’s anxiety and replies, “Yeah, yeah of course. I’m sure he’s fine, Bobby, ok? I’ll call you when I get there.”

She hears the alarm go off in the background before Bobby curses and responds, “Thanks, Hen. We gotta go but call me, please.”

He hangs up abruptly and Hen takes a moment to lament the loss of the comfort of her couch before grabbing her bag and heading out the door.

Hen has never been more grateful that she lives not too far from Abby’s condo and can get there without having to endure L.A’s freeway traffic. She parks hastily and is outside his door within fifteen minutes of Bobby’s call.

No one on the team actually has a key to the condo as Buck didn’t feel comfortable handing out spare keys to a place that wasn’t really his but he let them all know a while back that she kept a spare key in the plotted plant next to her door. Hen sends out a silent prayer that it is still there and is relieved when her hand connects with a tiny metal key. She quickly lets herself in and once she passes through the threshold of the condo, she is immediately met with the awful sound of retching.

She rushes to the bathroom where Buck is hugging the seat of the toilet, his loose grip and the force of his retching the only things keeping him from keeling over. He can’t see Hen from his position so she softly calls out his name before sitting on the floor by his side. If he’s aware of her presence, he makes no sign of it as he continues to vomit.

After another minute or so, the bout of nausea seems to pass and Buck’s body collapses in on itself. Hen cringes as he lays his cheek on the toilet seat before she can stop him. She places a gentle hand on his cheek and winces at how hot his skin is as she turns his face toward her to get a better look at him.

She hates what she sees. Buck looks absolutely miserable - his normally bright, blue eyes are glazed over and red around the edges. His face is flushed and she barely is able to continue assessing him before his face scrunches up and he struggles out of her hold to turn back towards the toilet bowl and dry heave again. Hen winces and rubs his back sympathetically until he lets up five or so minutes later.

When Buck is finished he stays still for a moment, panting raggedly over the toilet bowl and trembling finely.

Something in him seems to break and exhaustion crashes into him as his head falls back and an exhausted, loose sob escapes his mouth. Hen immediately shifts so that she’s supporting his head with her shoulder and cards her hand through his hair.

His body shakes with his cries and his mouth opens and closes as if he’s trying to form words but all that comes out are tiny, wounded sounds. Buck is working himself up, the physical and emotional exhaustion finally taking its toll. Hen doesn’t think about it much before she kisses his forehead and continues to rake her hand through his damp curls, whispering reassurances to him that she’s pretty sure he doesn’t hear. She knows she has to do something soon, has to call Bobby and probably 9-1-1, but she needs to wait until he’s not falling apart to continue.

“Maddie, ‘m so tired, I - I can’t take it anymore-”

Hen’s hand stills in his hair. A small part of her wants to ask who Maddie is, knows she might actually get an answer considering how out of it he was. Since she’s met him she has found that Buck, who is so open and generous with his heart, can also be secretive and guarded at times. Whenever anyone asks about his childhood or his family, he clams up. They’ve all learned to let it be but it doesn’t stop Hen from sometimes feeling weird about the fact that he knows so much about everyone on the team while no one knows much of anything about him. While she doesn’t begrudge him this and would never say this to him, a part of her always wonders why he’s so tight-lipped.

However, Hen knows that this isn’t the time to interrogate him. In the moment she was distracted, Buck was still heaving out small sobs and begging incoherently, was still weakly crying out for Maddie. His head writhes against her shoulder in discomfort and his hand twitches frantically on the ground, desperate, until he finds Hen’s hand and grabs onto it.

Hen squeezes his hand and shifts herself so that she can face him properly. The hand that was in his hair gently grabs his chin to turn his face towards her.

“Buck, it’s Hen. I’m right here with you, ok? I’m gonna help you.”

His sobs taper off as he blearily gazes at her. Finally, there’s a look of recognition and his face twists in confusion.

“Hen?”

Relief washes over her and despite her nerves, she forces himself to smile at him. “Yeah, Buck, it’s me.”

His hand tightens around her’s desperately and he looks up at her with a sad and panicked look that makes her breath catch in her throat. “Please, please don’t leave me, Hen. It hurts so bad.”

A knot forms in her stomach but she just gently squeezes his hand. “I know, Buck, I’m not going anywhere, ok? I got you.”

Buck seems to trust this and his face relaxes slightly, his eyes losing that awful frantic look.

“Buck, I need you to tell me where it hurts.”

He gestures to his right side with his free hand and whimpers. “Here, really bad.”

“Ok, I’m just gonna take a look, alright?

She pulls up his shirt and gently prods his abdomen. Still slightly confused and agitated, Buck tries to push her away as she applies a firm but tender pressure to his right side. A broken whine slips past his clenched jaw once her hands leave his side and he’s quick to curl the rest of his body around the area protectively.

She curses quietly enough so that he can’t hear before asking him, “How long have you been feeling like this, Buckaroo?”

Buck sniffles. “Uh, I-I don’t know. ‘m sorry.”

“It’s ok, Buck. I think we’re gonna need to call an ambulance for you, but I won’t leave.”

He nods slowly, trusting that she’d be by his side.

She fishes her phone out of her pocket and dials Bobby’s number. The line rings once before Bobby’s concerned voice filters through the phone.

“Hen? Is he ok?”

If the circumstances were any different, she would tease Bobby for his overprotectiveness. But now she just sighs. “I think he’s got appendicitis, Cap. I’m gonna call an ambulance.”

He takes a moment and audibly breathes out. “Okay. I still have another half hour left of my shift but I’ll meet you at the hospital when I’m done.”

“Okay, Cap. I’ll keep you updated.”

She’s about to hang up when Bobby cuts in, “Hen. Thank you.” His voice is thick and tight and Hen doesn’t need to see him to know how worried he must be, try as he might to conceal it.

“You don’t need to thank me, Cap. It’s what you do for family.”

Hen hangs up and calls 9-1-1 soon after and relays all of Buck’s symptoms and information to the dispatcher while Buck tries to breathe through the agonizing pain. Once she’s done with the call there isn’t much more she can do for him so she just holds him against her chest, her hand smoothing his hair, as they wait for the paramedics. When they do come, Buck becomes panicked and disoriented again but Hen stays close and keeps him calm, keeping her hand in his and answering the paramedics’ questions when he’s unable to.

Even though he finally, blessedly, passes out once he’s loaded into the ambulance, she holds his hand the whole way nevertheless. She’s still there when he wakes up after his surgery and Buck is uncharacteristically shy and guarded around her, waiting for her to say something, anything, about what an embarrassing mess he had been, but she never does.

In the days after he’s released, she shows up at the condo. Maybe it’s just her but there’s a haunted feel about Abby’s place and she hates the idea of Buck alone in that place, so she brings food for the both of them and spends however much time she can spare before she needs to return home to Karen and Denny.

It’s during one of these visits when they’re comfortably stretched out on the couch and eating take out that he confides in her about his sister Maddie who was his favorite person growing up, who practically raised him, who he feels he fails and who he hasn’t heard from in three years.

When Christmas comes around, he sheepishly asks her to take his picture for a Christmas card. She doesn’t need to ask who it’s for and when he’s quieter over the next few weeks, she doesn’t need to ask if he got a response. If Hen invites him over for dinner or asks him to babysit Denny more often than usual, he never says anything about it. She does what she can to let him know that he’s not alone anymore, that she won’t be another person who leaves. When Buck looks less and less surprised every time she extends an invitation to him or shows him that she wants him in her life, she feels that persistent knot in her stomach, the one that had formed the moment she walked in on Buck alone and in pain in his bathroom, start to relax.

And a few months later when Buck bounces into the station, grinning because his sister showed up at his place after three years of silence, the knot finally dissolves.

**Author's Note:**

> OK, so this is my first fic and I just had the idea of Buck mistaking Hen for Maddie when he's sick and wanted to write it. I've never really written anything and kudos to actual fic writers who do this on the regular because this gave me so much anxiety and it’s not even anything unique. I just really really love Buck and Hen’s friendship and need more of it. I hope you guys liked this!
> 
> also i’m at @gracieli on tumblr if you wanna say hi!


End file.
